Sunday, February 24, 2008

Every once in a while, I do okay. This was a Warsong Gulch match. My contribution to "healing done" came from Spirit Bond. God willing and the Creek don't rise, I'll have my Gladiator's Chain Leggings tomorrow.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

On closer inspection, it really is an excellent ring for Feral Druids, Enhancement Shamans, and Retribution Paladins. Of some use to others specs of these classes, for solo work, and also of use to hunters, although more for the much maligned Melee Hunter than "real" hunters.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Huzzah! WoW Insider has reported that as of patch 2.4, Primal Nethers will no longer be BoP. Of course, I wholly support this change. This really opens up crafting professions for those of us who lack the means to acquire Primal Nethers on our own. In particular, I'm looking forward to crafting my Surestrike Goggles.

It never seemed right to me that a vendor-trained recipe like the goggles would require mats that were inaccessible to some people. While there is nothing wrong with providing rewards to players for their progression, priviliged craftables should be limited to BoP recipes that produce BoP items. If I choose never to run The Timesink Cavern and pick up the schematic for Knobgobbler's Khorium Wonkenpuffer, then so be it. But recipes taught by a profession trainer should absolutely be equal-opportunity. I'm glad to see that Blizzard plans to remedy the disparity soon.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Hi again, all. My computer unfortunately suffered a meltdown a while ago -- or rather, several meltdowns concurrently -- so I haven't been online in a while. Outside of my warranty, I was fortunate to be savvy enough to order thepartsIneeded and fix itmyself. Remind me again why I bought a Mac? Oh yeah, ease of use and a reputation for quality. C'est la vie.

Once back in Azeroth, I found that I had some gold burning a hole in my pocket. I don't have an epic flyer yet, true enough, but I also have an inability to save money. And hey, what good is it to play an MMO with a living economy if you can't indulge in retail therapy? I hit up the auction house and found a pre-assembled Lunacy Deck for less than I could build one myself, and with the Darkmoon Faire on its last day outside Shattrath City, I hit the buyout button. The Madness card was honestly a marginal upgrade over my Goblin Rocket Launcher -- I basically paid ~1600 gold for 6 stamina. But hey, it's a purple. A winrar is me.

Besides the stamina boost, the Madness card has proven to be pretty useful for grinding. The proc on a killing blow, a temporary buff to either agility, stamina, or intellect, is an encouragement to kill as fast as you can. Combined with my Power Infused Mushroom, I've got some excellent staying power on grinds. Good thing, too. Hopefully the card will pay for itself soon. Fear me, Dreadfang spiders!

Speaking of do-it-yourself gold farming, I now owe a tremendous debt to Auden for pointing this out to me: a manual on installing and configuring the Cartographer addon to identify and map perfectly optimal farming routes for every type of harvestable resource in any given zone. Thus empowered, Gweryc's tours of duty over Nagrand and Shadowmoon Valley have become vastly more productive. I'm tucking away far more Motes of Fire from Fel Iron nodes now, saving them against the day I'll finally produce my Turbo-Charged Flying Machine, and ores are always a good seller.

Ah, but my indebtedness to the priestess of comicry runs deeper than mere gold! Reaching revered status with the Cenarion Expedition has been a goal of mine for a while, chiefly for the Glyph of Ferocity, but also because the Strength of the Untamed necklace would be a solid tanking upgrade. Unfortunately, that goal has stayed stubbornly out of reach, since Steamvault runs aren't easy to come by when you're a melee hunter. The alternative is to turn in Coilfang Armaments, but that's not an option without having first turned in the Orders from Lady Vashj, which -- you guessed it -- drops in the Steamvault.

Auden agreed to come along for my desperate plan to repeatedly farm the first two naga warriors inside of Steamvaults until they dropped the Orders. With a rich 2% drop rate, that's only 25 resets, right? Ugh. Strategy in place, Auden mind controlled one naga and forced it to trade blows with the other, releasing it when they were both extremely weakened.

One shot.

As if in supplication, not only did the first naga down on our first attempt drop the Orders, he gifted me with a starter Coilfang Armament. All that was missing was a parcel of myrrh. My jubilance may not have been entirely well-received, as the remaining naga was merrily pulping her face while I crowed over our triumph. To date, you can't pay repair bills in gratitude, but she earned plenty of it from me. Thank you, Auden.